BALTIMORE, Md. – The University of Hartford men's soccer team dropped a 3-0 decision to the UMBC Retrievers at the UMBC Soccer Stadium on Saturday afternoon in a key America East matchup for both teams. With the loss, Hartford (5-8-0, 2-3-0 America East) falls to the fourth place spot in the league standings while UMBC (8-4-2, 2-1-2 America East) currently shares second place with Binghamton. 

The Retrievers took control early and shut the door on the Hawks, scoring three goals in the first 40 minutes of the game to shift ahead of the visiting squad in the conference rankings. Andrew Bulls had a share in each of the Retrievers' goals, finishing with four points on a goal and a pair of assists.

Bulls netted what proved to be the game-winner with just 11:25 off of the game clock. The forward connected on a short cross from Chris Williams and tapped his third goal of the season into the back of the net to put his squad up, 1-0.

Less than 13 minutes later, UMBC was back on the attack. This time, Daniel Welsh skimmed a header into the back on a corner kick booted off the foot of Andrew Bulls at 24:05 to put the home team up 2-0.

UMBC closed out the afternoon's scoring as Liam Paddock delivered the final notch on the scoreboard at 39:43. Bulls again set up the score on a corner kick, launching a high ball into the box allowing Paddock to head it home past Hartford keeper Luke Citriniti from eight yards out.

Hartford attempted a game-high 11 shots, eight of which reached Retreivers' keeper Dan Louisignau who made all eight stops. UMBC rifled 10 shots at the Hartford defense. In net, Citriniti made a pair of saves in 70 minutes of action, allowing all three UMBC scores. In relief, Matt McElroy tallied one save over the final 20 minutes of the match.

Defenders Bojan Delibasic and Jorge Rodriguez led the Hartford attack with three and two shots, respectively.

With two games remaining on the conference slate, Hartford is still alive for the upcoming America East tournament. The Hawks return home to Al-Marzook Field for their final home game, a senior night match-up with Stony Brook on Wednesday, Oct. 27. Hartford closes out the regular season at Vermont – currently the fifth-place team in the league – on Saturday, Oct. 29 at 1:00 p.m.